


No I in Team.

by eurydicule



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, no point no plot we struggle to study characters like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 11:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20563406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydicule/pseuds/eurydicule
Summary: After two days of sitting in his own house, steeped in fear, perhaps, but at least surrounded by walls and things he knows, Shoe finds himself making his permanent bed on a sofa now, in the house of someone he has never even talked to before, three other guys sharing the room. It could have been worse, he knows these guys at least, Eggles, Narayan and Kyle. But then there are also the work shifts, which means that euphoric feeling of freedom flooding him the first night in the church, the excitement at not having to worry about school anymore, quickly ebbs. It gives way to the same drudgery, only he is not schlepping himself to Chem this time but to make breakfast for everyone in the cafeteria.[Six vignettes focused on Shoe]





	No I in Team.

**Author's Note:**

> Is fandom at the point yet where you start to really focus in on the minor characters while rewatching Season 1? Yes? Good? Okay.

## 1 – I

Coach is unforgiving that week. Shoe thinks that is fair.

They played a horrible game, too arrogant, and so they managed to scrape out a win, but only just about. What should have been an easy away-game, the first one of the season, had very nearly turned into a disaster and so Coach pulls all the strings that week, commandeering their free time to the point of taking the Seniors out from all non-AP classes after lunch break for three days in a row. Unprecedented. The only one unhappy about that, of course, is Visser.

Shoe for sure does not mind the extra training, would have happily skipped some of his classes, in fact, if told to do so. His grandparents are due for a visit this weekend, making their annual trip to West Ham from their retirement home in Maine. Consequently, it is bedlam at home. His father, in between client visits and house showings, spends most of his days deep cleaning the house, front porch to back garden. His mother has spent the last days running through a month’s worth of groceries, trying to determine what to serve his grandparents for dinner. Katalin and Réka, thus deprived of the tasks that they are expressly being paid for, seem just as aghast as Shoe is at the whole situation.

And then there is the smell, of course. It is not that you cannot smell it on the football fields, but it is definitely less pungent out there than it is close to the town centre. One more reason not to go home more than he absolutely has to.

“I don’t understand,” Réka says, shaking her head.

As the more or less successful concoctions of Shoe’s mother take up most of the stove, their cook has retreated to her last resort. The smell of freshly baked bread yanked Shoe straight from the front door into the kitchen. He did not even bother to drop off his training gear first. Now he perches on a bar stool, nibbling on a slice of buttered bread, hungrily eyeing the batch of _befgli_ Réka is preparing next.

“How come _you_ have to stay after school for training? You did not even play last weekend, did you?” Réka forms the poppyseed filling into a flat shape, then looks up at Shoe, not in the least sheepish. “… No offense.”

“No I in team,” Shoe shrugs, spreading a thin layer of butter over another slice of bread. He very much _does_ take offense.

Réka makes a bemused noise at the back of her throat, mutters something under her breath.

Shoe ignores her, chewing the bread, very slowly.

## 2 – You

Cassandra means well and what she says does make sense. Shoe cannot even fathom what it would be like to lose what they still have, the food, the water, the electricity.

And yet it does not feel good.

After two days of sitting in his own house, steeped in fear, perhaps, but at least surrounded by walls and things he knows, Shoe finds himself making his permanent bed on a sofa now, in the house of someone he has never even talked to before, three other guys sharing the room. It could have been worse, he knows these guys at least, Eggles, Narayan and Kyle. But then there are also the work shifts, which means that euphoric feeling of freedom flooding him the first night in the church, the excitement at not having to worry about school anymore, quickly ebbs. It gives way to the same drudgery, only he is not schlepping himself to Chem this time but to make breakfast for everyone in the cafeteria. He falls asleep at night exhausted, no time to think beyond maybe a short run when he can squeeze one in, too tired to think about what else he might do with the precious few hours outside of communal meals and town meetings and work.

By the end of the first week, it feels like people stop looking at each other, eyes swimming out of focus. As if they were looking slightly to your left the entire time. It is infectious. It used to be normal in school, just blocking everyone except those who mattered out, but with the town cleared of everyone but the Juniors and Seniors, it takes on a different level. Travis does not look at him when he tells him he is moving in with Jessica, a different house, not Claire’s. They don’t look at each other when they talk about what happened, looking instead at the floor, over people's shoulders, into a book, at the dark ceiling at night, but never directly at each other. Shoe finds it easiest not to talk about any of that at all, not the smell, not the trip gone wrong, just so he does not have to see people's eyes going vacant, even someone like Jason suddenly treading lightly, a calculated distance away so as not to come too close.

At night he catches himself out sometimes, suddenly awake and scared to move because he does not know what he would do if it turned out Kyle or Narayan were up too. So he just lies there, motionless, swallowing against the fear in his throat that is magnified by the lateness of the hour. It feels like he is dissolving along the edges, like he does not exist anymore, like as a whole they make up one thing, but no longer are distinct people. Impossible that he is the only one to feel this way. Impossible to bring it up with anyone when no one is really looking at each other.

Shoe looks left and right, hangs out by Luke’s house when he gets the chance, trying to gauge how others are dealing with it all. No one is dealing particularly well, but he recognises people like LeClair, Cassandra, Luke keeping it together, or at least upholding the semblance of doing so, by taking charge of the kitchen, the town, the Guard. Shoe has nothing of the sort.

## 3 –It

Shoe runs into Clark the morning after Dewey's execution.

He has heard of the suspension, seen the bruises on Dewey's face, they all have. But Shoe had also listened at the trial, perhaps noticed Dewey for the first time (or did they have AP Geography together?) and thought - so what.

Then the Guard executed him. Now he is not so sure anymore.

But the morning after, when the town is still quiet, perhaps still asleep after a difficult night, Clark is there, right by the gazebo.

Shoe slows down, pulling the earphones out of his ears. He stops, hesitates, not sure what he is thinking and perhaps about to think better of it, turn around and leave, when Clark raises his head, sees him. Smiles.

"Hey, Shoe."

Shoe smiles back, sits down on the steps to the gazebo next to Clark.

"You're up early."

"Morning run," Shoe says, as if that is not obvious from the sweat pooling on his brow, the workout clothes sticking to his back.

Clark grunts.

"That's good. Good of you to keep up the routine, I mean. Maybe I should take up running too. Makes up for the loss of practice, does it?"

Shoe looks at the grass, the dew in the morning sun.

"Yeah, it does."

Clark yawns, scratches his head. Before Shoe can ask, he says: "Gwen kicked me out of bed this morning ... for snoring."

Shoe laughs. Clarks swats his arm, but not very hard.

"What are you laughing at, Shoe? I wasn't."

"I'm sure you weren't."

"Good. Cause I wasn't."

One time on a trip with the Centurions, Shoe sat in the row behind Jason and Clark, with them both sound asleep for most of the bus ride. So Shoe knows for a fact that Clark is a terrible snorer. Just plain awful. There's audiovisual proof of it on Travis' phone.

Clark yawns again, shrugging into his letterman jacket.

"Anyway, man. Nice talk. I should be off. I'm doing the first shift at Allie's house today."

Shoe cannot help himself.

"They reinstated you?"

"Look at you, you little shit. Isn't that a big word for 7 in the morning?"

An emotion flickers over Clark's face, quick and hard, but Shoe blinks and it is gone.

"Course I'm still with the Guard," Clark flexes his fingers, stretches his arms. "That was never in question. ... Okay, man. See you around. Enjoy your run."

And, after bumping Shoe's fist, Clark gets up and wanders off into the cool morning air.

Shoe gets up from the stairs, shakes out his limbs and picks up a light jog again, going in the opposite direction.

He runs past Mickey and Camberwell circling the track up by the school, but barely notices that they are there. His thoughts following the rhythm of his shoes on the tarmac. The day before, the weeks before that, when there still used to be football practice, when he would sit next to a fellow Centurion on a bus, on a bench, in the cafeteria, instead of roaming the suburban little streets of hell on earth by himself.

He is out by the train tracks when he realises that he needs to turn back if he still wants to grab breakfast before his rubbish duty shift starts.

It used to be currency, being a Centurion, but now everyone, Rodriguez, Travis, Strex, is pulling street cleaning, rubbish duty, cafeteria shifts like everybody else.

Everyone but Allie and the Guard, of course.

## 4 – We

Shoe runs his fingers over the golden letters, WH. It has not even been half a year since he got his letterman jacket, but the sheen is already starting to fade, the edges of the letters fraying despite his best efforts.

Shoe remembers everything, the whole summer before Junior year alternating between practicing in his backyard and working at the Franklin Hardware Store, the current in the air on the day of the try outs, the ache in his muscles, the shot of ecstasy to find his name on the roster, the discovery that he was actually good enough to play games consistently. He has no idea what he will do once he is done with school, but Shoe already knows that he will never feel better than he did the day he got his letter.

He loved being on the team. How easy it was to fit in, like there had always been a place for him there, just patiently waiting for him to take it. In the first weeks, Shoe did not talk to anyone not on the team at all, too busy to get to know the other new Centurions, slowly working up to the Seniors. The first time Clark had thrown him a pass, Shoe had dropped the ball, but luckily someone tackled him straight after anyway, so nobody noticed. He got better after that, it started to feel real, even if he never really got to the point of being used to it. His name on the scoreboards, his kit in the washing machine, Travis dropping him off after practice, his seat at lunch. That huge group of players and their girlfriends, cheerleaders and their boyfriends, being a part of it all.

And sure, it was not like the cheerleaders really looked at him. Even the ones with boyfriends on the team, Gwen, Jessica, Madison, merely smiled in the vaguest of ways when he was part of their conversations. Which meant a clear step up from being cleanly looked through, though. Besides, Shoe was not like some of the other Juniors, not really all that keen on getting that kind of attention from those girls. He has been only really interested in Akkad from French II that way, which is a train wreck in its own right. Being part of the team, once even almost getting invited to one of Gwen’s parties, helped with not having to think about that too much.

They were a team, no matter what Réka said. And Shoe was right there with them. He sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and could have sworn that “Centurions on three” was on his lips. They used to step up once a month, Coach picking a different cause each time, picking litter, washing cars to raise funds for the old folks’ home on the periphery of town, one time even bussing up to Hartford for some football practice with at-risk kids. No one sat at their tables in the cafeteria uninvited and no Centurion ever sat alone, period. They were good at what they were doing on the field, they really were. And when someone from Hemsley Magnet School had once looked at Travis funny in the wrong way, it had taken Luke, Strex and Narayan combined to hold back Rodriguez from knocking the guy out on the spot. Visser had gone to speak to the ref, very quietly, very firmly, and the guy had been sent to the dressing room not five minutes after the incident. They were a team, after all. No questions asked. No second thoughts.

That is what Shoe misses the most in this new and messed up place.

There is a sharp knock and Shoe drops his hands from the jacket just before Luke pops his head through the door.

“Hey, Shoe. … All settled in? Enjoying your own room again? Good. … Are you ready for your first patrol?”

Luke opens the door wide and Jason is there, leaning against the wall in the hallway, and so is Grizz. Jason flashes him his biggest smile.

Shoe nods, once, like it’s nothing. He puts the jacket on, carelessly, as if it means nothing.

“Yeah. … I’m ready.”

## 5 – You

Grizz is furious.

That is nothing new.

They are all in Allie’s kitchen, Jason and Clark lounging on the bar stools, Luke leaning against the counter, Grizz by the door, arms crossed. Shoe is by the fridge, but he might as well not be there. It is after dinner, but it is a surprisingly balmy night, so apart from Allie and Will cooped up upstairs, no one else is home yet.

Grizz shakes his head.

“You have got to give him the car keys back, Clark.”

“Why? Have you seen him drive? He’s a danger to society, I tell you that,” Clark chuckles.

Jason is trying, and failing, not to laugh.

“Besides,” Luke says, tone a little less bemused, “it’s Brandon Eggles. You know, the one who almost got us all killed in a shoot-out with Marnie?”

“Because he dropped his gun,” Jason finally bursts out, “like an idiot.”

“That was four months ago, guys!” Grizz bristles, pulling at the elastic bands around his wrist. “And what does that have to do with anything? We took his gun, remember? Why do we now have to take his car?”

Luke raises his arms as if to defend himself.

“He didn’t show up for work again. That’s the third time this has happened in two months.”

“Okay, so … I thought that meant someone goes to check up on him, sees what’s up and then cuts his rations, if need be? I still don’t see at what point his car comes in.”

Shoe watches Clark cross his arms in front of his chest.

“Well, I went down to Claire’s house. Eggles wasn’t there, but his car keys were, so…”

“You took them.”

“Yep. … Don’t look at me like that, Grizz. You saw my message in the text chain.”

“After you took the keys.”

“Yeah, whatever. There was an agreement. … Jason and Luke said it was the right thing to have done. It was a unanimous decision.”

“That does not make it any less stupid.”

“Grizzy, come on, man,” Jason chimes in. He leans back on his chair so that he can gently poke Grizz in the stomach. “Did you not hear the big word that Clark just used? … You weren’t there, okay? If we’d known you’d feel so strongly about this…”

And there it is.

Shoe honestly does not know how this is happening every time, how one moment the air seems to crackle with tension and then suddenly, it is all good. How one moment it feels as if someone might snap at Grizz, finally, and then they will just crack a joke and everything is fine again.

“Maybe we should give him the car keys back, guys,” Luke says quietly. “We could go over there again – I mean he’s clearly at home now, right? We should find out what’s up. Maybe a day without his car has been enough of a punishment. And if not, we can always dock his rations. At least that would be consistent.”

Clark rolls his eyes.

“Fine. Shoe can bring back the keys.”

“You can do that yourself just as well, Clark,” Grizz snaps, but Shoe quickly raises his hands.

“It’s no problem. I was going up there to talk to Kyle anyway.”

“My man,” Clark grins triumphantly and high fives Shoe.

Grizz eyes Shoe carefully from across the room, openly acknowledging his presence for the first time. Shoe should probably be grateful for that, meaning that Grizz’ anger had not been directed at him before, given that no one had asked him about Eggles’ car. But instead he finds himself more annoyed than anything else.

“You sure, Shoe?”

“One hundred percent. No problem at all.”

Grizz nods slowly, pulls his hair up in a bun.

“Okay. I’ll be back here in an hour, then, to take over from you guys. You could ask Eggles what’s up then, Shoe? … I think Bean mentioned that he suffers from allergies. Maybe they flare up when he’s on street cleaning duty or something.”

Shoe nods, once, sure. He knows that the allergies part is true. But nobody had asked.

“Where you going, Grizz?” Clark says now, rubbing his stomach. “You’ve only just arrived! … Why don’t you hang out with us until your shift starts?”

“Well, I meant to be home by now. Got to water some shoots before it’s really dark. … I’ll be back in an hour. See you, guys.”

And with that he is out of the door, not even waiting for Luke and Jason who are both shrugging into their jackets now, probably getting ready for their date nights.

When the other two have gone, Clark and Shoe relocate to the porch. As the house settles into a quiet evening murmur behind them, Shoe pulls out a packet of honey roasted peanuts from his jacket and shakes it in front of Clark’s face. Honey roasted peanuts are Clark’s favourite. Shoe knows that now.

He does not resent Grizz for being Grizz, of course he does not. Grizz is harmless, brilliant on the field (or he used to be), often quiet off it, he reads the type of books that Shoe’s sister, a Classics postgrad, might enjoy, has a weird obsession with his garden, apparently. He is nice too, when he wants to be. So that is not it. But what Shoe might resent is the fact that it has been a month and yet sometimes it still feels as if he is on the outside looking in. That he has been putting in a lot of effort and a lot of hours when Grizz, and this is fair to say, has not, not the same amount, at least. And still, all it takes is one word from him and they all pivot.

It is obvious they would not do that for Shoe.

## 6 – They

It is a split-second of a decision. It should be hard, but Shoe has lived most of his life along this particular question. So it is a no brainer.

“Okay.”

Luke stops in his tracks, as if he perhaps expected a different answer. Shoe cannot see Campbell’s face, leaning in the shadows, but the answer is all there in the set of Jason’s jaw, the glint in Clark’s eyes, Grizz’ absence.

“Sorry?” Luke still looks at him wondering, almost worried.

“I said okay. I mean that’s messed up, what she did. Trying to rig the election. … So I’m in.”

“Good man, Shoe,” Clark murmurs. “I knew you were going to say that. Didn’t I tell you guys? I knew it.”

Campbell steps forward now and puts a gun in Shoe’s hand. It is cold and heavy. Shoe has seen a fair amount of them over the past couple of weeks, he knows what holding one feels like now, but that does not mean that there is not a spark of apprehension every time they make him handle one. Over in a flash, but it happens every time.

Campbell looks at Shoe’s hands, steady.

“We go and arrest her now. Her and Will. While they are still at her house.”

Shoe looks up, at Campbell, Clark, Luke, Jason, and nods. No brainer.

“It’s good timing too, don’t you think?”

Campbell’s hand is too hot when he digs it into Shoe’s neck. It sends a shiver down Shoe’s spine and Campbell surely notices, because he digs even harder.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, good thing we’re doing something about it now, while the expedition is still away. … You don’t want to drag too many people into this, no? And I know the Akkad girl is staying at my cousin’s house. Not that she would be implicated in this. … I’m just saying. The timing is good, no?”

Shoe almost trips over his own feet. Luke shoots him a quick glance, notices Campbell’s hand on Shoe’s shoulder and looks away. Jason and Clark don’t even seem to notice, their stares fixed on the Pressman house.

This is not necessary, Shoe wants to say, I am already on your side. Allie has done something wrong, so we arrest her. We are the Guard. Why would you-

And then it hits him.

“You guys go in first. Shoe and I will join you in just a moment,” Campbell says and Luke nods, curtly, before he, Jason and Clark grimly climb up the back porch.

Perhaps it does not speak for Shoe, but it is only then that doubt starts to settle in. Campbell, after squeezing Shoe’s neck one last time, listens at the door for a moment.

All this time and perhaps Shoe had gotten this all wrong, gotten too mixed up in what was and not what is going on right now. Following his team captain, his team, when really there has not been a team for months. He has answered this question for himself so many times, without fail, a coin toss that yields the same result over and over and over.

Campbell motions for Shoe to follow and steps through the back door. Shoe stumbles after him.

_Us vs Them._

Except … maybe he chose wrong this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything I know about American high school and football stems from Wikipedia. Sorry.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
